Cherished ring found amid rubble of Union Beach

Finding a cherished ring lost during Sandy is a minor miracle for a Union Beach woman and surviving son after a painful year

Dec. 10, 2012

Susan Olsen holds the ring of her older son, David Allan, who died in March, while Johnny Olsen, 18, looks on. The ring, Johnny's cherished possession, was swept away by superstorm Sandy. It turned up a week later, found by a neighbor. Peter Ackerman/staff photographer

The school ring that belonged to Johnny Olsen's late brother, lost during Sandy but found a week later. / Peter Ackerman/staff photographer

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UNION BEACH — The ring that Sandy swept out into the sudden wreckage of Union Beach meant more to Johnny Olsen than any other possession, save for a framed letter from his best friend, who died in January.

Olsen lost many belongings — nearly everything — when Sandy roared through his home. Gone were his baseball and football trophies, the plaques he had earned over the years, the Most Improved Player certificates he received in his junior year and first varsity season playing for the Keyport High School Red Raiders football team.

But what he cherished most was the Keyport Central Class of ’97 ring that belonged to his 29-year-old brother, David Allan, who was found dead in March.

That ring “meant all the world to Johnny,” his mom, Susan Olsen, said.

His friends and relatives spent hours looking for the ring, it seemed to be gone for good.

But after a year marked by one tragic loss after another, Susan Olsen still believes in miracles.

Gone

Union Beach is a place on the Bayshore where livings come harder than elsewhere in Monmouth County and where several generations of families often live on the same streets. The storm reduced many dwellings, especially those near the waterfront like the Olsens, to mold-infested ruins and crushed many others.

Susan, 48, a home health care aide who works with hospice patients, lived in a rented apartment in a three-family home on Florence Avenue. It is now being renovated.

It was around the corner on Florence and Front streets where in March she found her oldest son hanging from a light pole jutting from a commercial building.

“I fell to my knees,” she said, the shock of his tragic death, ruled a suicide, upending her life.

It took six months of grief counseling to get her back on her feet, prolonged by the death also of a close cousin who left behind her four children and husband.

Out of work since that day in March, Susan returned to her job Sept. 14.

Six weeks later, Sandy hit.

“Me and Johnny were doing great, then the hurricane came and took everything away,” she said.

The ring was “all Johnny had left from his brother David,” Susan said.

For Johnny, a senior at Keyport High School and now 18, the grade school ring symbolized his brother’s advice to be a leader, he said.

When Johnny went into his room after Sandy struck and faced his altered life, he wept, he said. The ring had been hanging from a chain on a nail in his wall, the letter near it.

“After the storm, I didn’t really care about anything. I just wanted my brother’s ring and what Mat wrote me,” he said.

His friend, 17-year-old Matthew Adams, who went by Mat with one t, was struck and killed by a car Jan. 21 while crossing Route 36 in Hazlet.

Team Effort

Johnny, a running back and outside linebacker, served as the captain of the Red Raiders this season. The team knew that Johnny was grieving again – this time over the loss of the ring.

“Since we’re all just like family on the team, they all respect me and they all love me, so they came down and tried to find it,” he said.

The senior-laden team developed a particular closeness this season and supported Johnny through his several tragedies, Red Raiders Coach Mike “Chic” Ciccotelli said.

“They had each other’s backs,” he said. “They took care of each other. They cared about each other. It’s all about loyalty. A lot of character. Tough kids.”

The team, friends and neighbors scoured the property for two hours looking for the ring. But no one found it.

During the storm, the surge tossed around Susan’s 1994 Ford Explorer “like a toy,” she said. A few weeks after the football team futilely searched for the ring, a neighbor asked if she wanted to sell the tires on the ruined vehicle and she told him to take them, she said.

When he was rolling one away, he stumbled upon the ring on the ground, the same area the team and volunteers picked through a few weeks before.

“I was crying,” Susan said. “It was a miracle. It was my son David.”

She took the ring to Keyport High School and went to Principal Michael Waters, who called Johnny out of class.

“He was kind of breaking down,” Waters said. “He looked really excited that the ring was found, but he was in disbelief, like it was surreal to him.”

Johnny said: “Best feeling ever.”

But the story of the ring lost and then found has an unfinished ending. When Matthew Adams left Union Beach when the boys were still in grade school, he wrote to Johnny about how the bond they formed would not be broken.

Sandy left the tokens of many memories strewn across Union Beach — still in fences, in trees, among the rubble of houses and in Raritan Bay. Much of the debris has already been carted away.